As discussed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US2007/0004428 A1, rudimentary weighted averages formulas have been used to calculate wireless access point locations. In systems employing such formulas, individuals voluntarily supply the data required by systems, which presents a number of problem. Some of data may be new while other data could be years old. Since access point locations can change, this is problematic. The data may be inconsistent since each querying device uses different hardware and software configurations, each radio antenna has different signal reception characteristics affecting the representation of the strength of the signal, and scanning software implementations may scan for wireless signals in different ways at different times. Data may aggregate around heavily traffic areas resulting in arterial bias. Each database may calculate access point locations differently and with different weighted average formulas. As a result, many access points may not be correctly located.
As discussed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US2009/0280827 A1, neural networks have also been used to match scaled signal strengths of wireless access points measured by a device to records of signal strengths of wireless access points.